The Gomer Project
by Memeal
Summary: (01&02) Duo cannot be faithful, even if he wants to be. So why does Heero keep coming back for him? What does the Perfect Soldier want from him? [yaoi tinted, no real ending]
1. The PickUp

((_Warnings:  
1. slash  
2. This story has no plot. Should it obtain one later on, I will not be held responsible.  
3. Along with no plot, this story may be more like a series of character sketches or moments with no real purpose, otherwise known as one-shots. The characters remain the same, hopefully they'll be chronological, and because of the nature of this particular beast, an ending is possibly nowhere to be found. We shall see!))_

* * *

"_Sometimes I feel like a motherless child  
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child  
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child  
A long way from home"_

traditional gospel song

* * *

The Gomer Project

His hair was a long rope of golden brown, slinking down across his shoulder and over his bare shoulder blade. It had a snake like quality beckoning to fingers and minds alike. There was a softened look about it, a silken rope that could be used in the worst of ways and had been, as well. And because of the many uses it had been put to, the pain it had wrought and the pleasure it had given, it also gleamed like a red light in the central district, promising things that it would deliver for the right price.

And right now, it hung down across that bare back and curled like a not so innocent hand against the black leather flank, shining in the neon coming from the all night bar where men stumbled out with girls, boys on their arms and eyes drowsy with living life too fully.

His hand gripped the brick archway next door and held him up while his eyes skittered across the patrons entering and leaving. Red lips curled, glossed so that they looked as if they'd just been lover to a tongue, and his free arm crossed a bare abdomen. It was a warm night and this block had been hit by the undercover cops only a week before. It was more likely that they were trying to catch their usual fare of prostitute, druggie, and measly punk kid in some other place. They never stayed anywhere long. Like hunters they feared frightening off their quarry if they took down too many in one place so they moved about, strutting with power in their hidden badges in packs, roaming their large territory, keeping to one street until the pickings were slim and then moving on to the next. They would be back. But they wouldn't be back soon.

The street that kept secrets from the bar's inside ear, lay with a smell that could be home and could be curse, or maybe both to the long haired youth holding up the brick wall with his shoulders and hand. His hand ached, actually. It had been a busy night but all five doller jobs, which meant for a raw hand and he could still sit down. The big spenders had been frightened off by the cops the week before. They weren't willing to take the chance that they could be caught with their pants down around their knees and the pictures of their families on the dash of their twenty thousand dollar car, complete with custom pearlized paint color. So for now, the youth would make do with those few socially incomptent wrecks who thought that a fiver might just get them enough to get by on, or maybe something to finish off what they'd started by hanging out by parks or on internet cafes or in the bars a bit further down the street. Nice thing about the hair, they didn't always care if they were with a man. They'd grab his hair and pull it close and murmur how wasn't it so pretty, and they would imagine that the cheaper five dollar job was the brunette in the Vu on the corner.

He had made enough for dinner and to buy that new pair of bitch boots he'd seen at the Bon. It wasn't a bad night. He might even take the rest of the night off. Maybe after the next one. By one in the morning, he could call it an early day, half an hour away.

Making the clock his boundary, he smiled coyly at a pair leaving the bar. He could have gone in, but he'd have to spend six bucks for the cover fee. That was two gallons of milk or a nice tube of lipstick, dammit. He wasn't willing to spend that much when he'd not made much to begin with.

Heels clicked up the sidewalk behind him, recognizing the step, his smile grew and he turned his head to grin at the girl. The two men who'd exited the bar were swaying, muttering low to each other in the door of the bar, just a step out of the way of those who wanted to enter or leave. He could hear their thoughts whirling, could hear the alcohol driven lust begging to be freed, for the right price.

Cool fingers found their way across his lower back and made goose pimples raise on his skin. "Hands, babe.." he hissed, staring down at her electric green eyes. Contacts. She had a different pair for each day of the week and under their circular color, he could sometimes glimpse the brown lurking, bland and worth a dime to the dollar the colors got. It was in the eyes. He had a violet blue that should be patented and was strictly natural. The darkness of the pupils wasn't, he got that from adding drops to his eyes or having a hit before he went out. Dilating pupils was another extra buck or two.

Music poured from the bar, thrumming against his chest and mixed in with the chuckle that jiggled her breasts against his chest. She was not topless like him, but then she was a dame, so it would have been illegal for her not to be covered at least the little bit she was. Still, that halter top left little to the imagination, almost see through in the pale street lights and blue and red flickering neon.

Marinated, the drunken argument from the men diluted and then died in the liquid sex she was pouring out with just her red nails on his breast bone and the look she was aiming at them.

"Hi Duo," she purred and smiled, then without looking away from the two men, tilted up her mouth for a kiss which he gave her, sizzling hot on the outside and cold as ice under, directly disproportionate to what she was on the outside, her night cooled skin and warmth in that wet cavern. They made sure to show enough of tongues tangling and he left it up to her to time the breaking apart just right; long enough to titillate but not so long that it seemed a hopeless case for the other two.

She pressed Duo back into the brick wall, her long thigh in between his legs and her cheek on his chest, and he could see in his eyes the look she gave the two men. He added his own version of the same thing, dark eyes and slightly wanting mouths, cheap, easy, and hot enough to put dreams to rest even if for a moment or two.

"You boys want to join in?" she purred. "One of us for fifty, both for seventy five?" She made sure to let those beckoning red nails trail white tracks down Duo's arm, lightly scratching.

"Se'nty five?" one of the men, a larger, portly man who probably was hiding a picture of some kids in his back pocket. "S'not bad fer two, Herb."

Duo felt a grin tickle his throat and he dropped his mouth into her hair to hide the laugh that rushed against his chest and leapt about a moment. Who was named Herb? Oh he'd have fun with that name later.

"S'not," the taller, younger man had a distinctively gay feel to him, the way he looked over Duo with hunger. "S'not at all…" and Duo looked askance at him and then gave a small smile. Herb looked like he might want to be a top. There was a sense of need for power in his desperately drunk grin.

"Well then," the girl laughed and left Duo using a lingering touch, almost touching his belt as she let her hand run down his chest and Duo watched "Herb" lick his lips and watch her red nails like a bull watching for the signal to charge. "I'm Suzie."

"Stan," the portly father of two or three or four said and reached out to touch her.

"Pay up front," she spoke calmly and with a business like mien.

"Shit.. Oh.. Yeah…" and Stan fumbled for his wallet as Herb sidled around and slowly started to advance on the braided man leaning against the wall.

Herb halted just shy of his target when Stan's whine broke through the desire coated night air. "Herb? Yu got'nything? I only gotsa twenty.."

Herb blinked, pulling away and looked back at his partner in drunken stupor. Duo chuckled low at the look of disappointment on the taller man's face. There would be no hour long orgy tonight with these two. They'd pissed away most of their check on the booze that had almost got them broke with too much sex.

"Only a twenty? Oh baby, that's okay," Suzie crooned and hooked her arm around Stan's shoulders, rubbing her body next to his. "I can still do some pretty wild things for twenty."

That was Duo's cue to get lost and he shrugged into a shadow just south of a garbage can before Herb ol' buddy ol' pal could think to say otherwise. Suzie would give Herb enough to be thankful for. 'Sides, the guy looked closeted. You aren't always sure what you get with the closeted ones.

The sidewalk glittered from a sixties attempt to add crushed glass to the cement, it felt like walking on stars and Duo watched the ground at his feet as he walked. Checking his watch it was ten to. He should just head home. He wasn't feeling up to a quickie hand job or anything that easy. And what was an extra fiver tonight?

Things would pick up in a few days when the big spenders figured out the girls were being targeted elsewhere. It was always the girls (and the few boys as well) that were picked up. The guys in the black and silver cars always seemed to finagle their way out of things.

Duo watched the traffic pass by, sparse and uncertainly wavering now and again as exhaustion or drink made hands slip. The white and red lights were kind of festive. And considering what holiday was here, it was kind of nice. Only needed some green and blue and you'd have a long, blinking string to decorate the great black tree that was the city's girdle. Could almost make you believe in things like perfect turkeys and rings in black cases and firelight; stuff you saw on advertisements during breaks between television shows. Not that he was in the habit of watching television much.

It was just outside of his apartment that he heard a purring downshift of an expensive motor just behind him. Sounds like that weren't natural to his ear. Coughing and growling motors, the high whine of a performance sports car or the low rumble of a car with hydraulics, those were real. But this purring, like a whisper of silk and velvet, this just didn't belong and it made him turn around.

The car gleamed silver and enticed him like his braid tempted others. There was no flash in the color or the make. Instead there was a comfortable richness about it, something you'd expect a long time millionaire to have. It was a car that the owner to exchange for his sports car when he wanted to make a good appearance at an operetta down at the Met or to take his girlfriend to some out of the way hideout for a perfect weekend getaway. It wasn't the type of car anyone picked up a hooker in.

It made Duo hungry for something he couldn't name and it made him hate, all in the same breath. He sneered in disgust and began to turn when he noticed one slightly tinted window drop and a dark form lean forward.

"Excuse me," the voice called and Duo wanted to run toward and away from it simultaneously. It was a kiss of sound that made him shiver with lust and want and desire and it made him want to show his own superiority over anyone who thought they could make it doing his life after living with a silver spoon in their mouth. Money was Duo's bread and butter as well as the thing he abhorred and wanted most of all. He dreamt of his own Pretty Woman story happening but he'd been burned plenty by the judgment of the more upstanding citizens of his city.

His sneer curled backwards and folded in on itself until he was almost smiling. He could hear his boot heels on the starry pavement as he approached the purring car. He made sure to thrust his hips forward and smoothen his actions and to stop just before the window so that his belly was visible. Then putting the hand that was sore and marring the perfection of that car's sides with the disgusting essence of what made him so worthy of disdain as he gripped the side and knelt slowly, he arched a brow. "Lost?" he purred, much like Suzie had to her drunken guests.

The man inside was lost to shadow.

"No, but I want something."

"Oh?" Duo's lips lifted until his canines flashed and his eyes danced like the cement around his haunches. "What do you want? Maybe I can help."

"You."

The answer was so predictable Duo should have laughed. But the way it was said frightened him. He knew better but he didn't give right away. "Yeah? Well, lots of people think they need me."

"Oh no," came the soft voice like a summons from the depths of hell, sliding smoke like out of the darkened window. "Oh no, I don't need you. I want you, you see. Will you come?"

"Baby, I can come…" Duo let the double entendre take effect but the man did not laugh. Duo sighed in resignation. "Look, four hundred an hour. Can you do it?"

"Four hundred…" the man pondered. "How much will you give me?"

"Everything," Duo wondered at why he was shivering.

"That," the man said pointedly, "is exactly what I want."

"Wait," Duo hedged in an uncertain tone. "What kind of everything you talking about? I do have rules, mister."

"Of course," the voice stated patiently. "I will abide by whatever rules you have."

Duo sighed in relief but didn't feel overly relieved. "Let me see you." He wanted to see what the man looked like.

"Get in first."

"No, you show me," Duo was afraid he'd be taking on something… frightening. He didn't like this man. His voice was too gentle, almost loving. Like he knew something Duo didn't.

A sigh, a rustle in the darkness followed by a click of an overhead light and the interior of the car was flooded with a gentle, comforting glow. And Duo stared a moment and looked away, his body shaking.

The man was more frightening than he'd thought. And it wasn't that he was ugly or disgusting. It was that he was so… perfect. His black hair fell around his face and tangled over his skull in a nest that looked softer than down. His face colored golden, showed nothing but a sweetness and patience and strength that was almost angelic. But it was his eyes that were the worst. They were secret, wild, beautiful blue eyes, like seeing the inner heart of the ocean, hidden from mankind because to look at them once would be lose yourself. And Duo had no intention of being lost.

"Six hundred," the man upped the ante at seeing how Duo was faltering.

Duo swallowed hard. "An hour," he murmured. "Beginning the minute I enter your car."

"Agreed," there was the quiet rest and promise in that voice again and Duo looked into the car.

It was silver, like the outside, leather interior and was immaculate. It would be stained by having him in there. But then, he'd stained the outside of the car with his sore hand already. He felt like crying. And because boys never cry, he sneered instead, hiding effectively behind his hatred of those who take their comfort for granted.

Obviously Mr. Perfect wasn't so damned perfect or he wouldn't be picking up a hooker and a guy at that. Confident in that, Duo stood and before he could think twice, opened up the car door and slipped inside. "Okay."

The man smiled at him and Duo's gut twisted. He watched the smile and refused to look into the man's eyes. He didn't want to see those eyes again. "Just go," he growled. "Let's get this over with."

TBC…


	2. The Dream

_Well stop good God let me tell the news  
My head got wet in the midnight dew  
I been down on bended knee  
Talking to the man from galilee  
Then my God spoke and he sound so sweet  
I thought I heard the shuffle of angels' feet  
Then He put one hand upon my head  
Great God Almighty let me tell you what He said_

_Go tell that longtime liar  
Go tell that midnight rider  
Tell the gambler, the rambler, the backbiter  
Tell them God Almighty gonna cut 'em down_

_You run on for a long time  
Run on, for a long time  
Run on, for a long time  
Let me tell you God Almighty gonna cut you down_

traditional gospel hymn, arranged by Five Blind Boys from Alabama

* * *

Three hundred dollars later, the car slowed down and Duo lifted his head with a disgusted look around him. The stop sign struck up a silent conversation with the tree lined street and murmured secrets that Duo would never be party to. Brush leaned away from the curb and toward houses sitting pompous and beautiful, their nose like balconies in the air and sightless windows staring inward at themselves. This was the valley of rest, men and women hiding their heads in their cash and their perfected displays of color and fabric and landscaped lawns. There were no backyard bar-b-ques here. Nor did men in wife beater tank tops mow lawns as their wives screamed at the kids to set the table, dammit. Duo didn't know this kind of world. 

Hell, not like he knew the other. He'd grown up on the streets, born and bred in the inner city. He was twenty five and a devout member of the church of realism. He had a good five more years or maybe a bit more, before his looks failed him. Then he'd already chosen out his boozing corner. Well, it was that or get the twenty five cent answer in his brain. Either one might work for him, really.

The car murmured contentedly and accelerated away from the stop sign, heading half way down the street and turning left into a drive way, pausing before an imposing and bare brick wall with a heavy, black iron gate leading to a further tree lined drive. He couldn't see the house from here but apparently there was one. The gate had none of the beautiful scrolling of the others, rather it loomed high overhead and frowned down at the car, angry that someone would dare bring in something so soiled and disgusting as the night hawk sitting shotgun.

"So, this your place or are you just the delivery boy?" Duo snickered, thumbing his nose at the gate as it swung open.

"Do you like it?" the man said smoothly and Duo gritted his teeth. There was something wrong in that voice, false, hateful. It made Duo want to claw his ears off of his scalp.

"I don't care, just so long as I get paid," the braided man snorted, crossing his arms over his chest and staring out the side window at the shadowy private forest they passed. He wasn't playing the part, but hell, he'd just made three hundred just driving there. If the guy didn't want him, he'd still pay to see Duo leave and it would be three hundred which would pay for a taxi back and leave plenty over.

"You needn't concern yourself with that," the man replied. "I never break a promise when it is made."

"Tsch… yeah, and I never lie," Duo retorted with a sarcasm and anger he didn't understand. He only knew he wanted to lash out at this john, make him think twice before picking up a stray from the streets.

"You don't," the man said honestly. "You just don't tell the entire truth."

"And what makes you think you know me?" Duo snapped back.

"I don't think. I know."

Duo stared at him. "You're a real piece of work. Look, I'm not gonna do any funny stuff. I don't do orgies, I won't do someone else while you watch, I am not doing bondage for you, so if you think you can treat me like I'm something you can just use and throw away, then you'd better rethink it. I'm a professional, man. I do my job and I do it well. I sure as hell don't screw just anyone and I won't be part of some crazy, nutso freak fantasy you have to pretend you're gay or some thing or… " Duo was rambling, he could hear how his words shot into the darkness of supposition and hit nothing. The man next to him simply drove in silence, allowing for them to lob past him, comfortable that Duo couldn't touch him.

"Stop the fucking car," Duo finally managed in anger.

The car slowed, stopped. Duo sat in the chair, feeling the heat from the radiant heat seats and didn't want to get out. He breathed slowly and waited for his john to break the silence.

Silence stretched on and Duo broke it because he didn't have the patience to wait. "Here are my rules," and he turned slightly, taking note of the slight nod in the man's form. "I don't do nothing kinky. I'll let you top and when you're done, no cuddling, no kissing. I don't do bondage. I won't hug or pretend to be your baby girl or whatever. And I need to be paid now."

The man moved in the darkness of the car and that warm light slid around the interior like a great cat, predatory and made Duo shiver. He turned his body slightly, feeling how his back had gotten sweaty and stuck to the leather seat.

"And you have to tell me your name," he added. "I won't blackmail you or any of that shit. But I'm not gonna keep not knowing who you are. Besides, I know where you live."

The man nodded again as he rose up and searched for his wallet in his back pocket. Duo felt himself stir, watching the trim waist slide against the fine cotton of the man's shirt. The man's thighs strained against the well tailored pants and Duo could see the slight rise of fabric against a well toned flank and rear end. The sight was enough to leave him with an itch to crawl out of his skin.

"You may call me Heero," and because he was talking, Duo could look at his mouth. He had looked into those eyes once and he didn't dare do it again. "And I expect that with the drive back to your home and the hour, I should have you home by three and that will be twelve hundred?" At Duo's dumb nod, the man slipped finger and thumb into the wallet, drawing out bills and counting them.

Duo bit the inside of his mouth until he tasted blood.

"Would you like to walk? I will meet you at the front door." The sounds of doors unlocking shocked Duo and he tore his eyes away from those lips. "If you would care to, that is," the man… Heero, added. "It seems to me that you are a tad apprehensive."

'More like scared shitless,' Duo thought ruefully and nodded, breaking out of the car with a gulp of the fragrant air. He watched the door slowly close and heard the purr leave. Only after the last blink of red had gone and the moon light spilled down onto the small lane, was he able to engage his brain once more.

Rubbing his eyes, Duo looked down at his empty hands and bent his head, pushing the palms of his hands into his eyeballs with a low groan. "What'm I doing?" he murmured to himself before he began the walk in the darkness toward the house.

He had to get that money, right?

The walk took a lot longer than he'd have expected. It was uphill and his boots hurt. An ache had begun in his lower back from having his hackles raised for so damn long and he began to wonder if maybe it wouldn't be a good idea just to go back the way he'd come.

It was strange, rounding that last corner and coming into view of a house so large he wouldn't be able to walk around the damn thing and make it back to the front door by morning light. He ought to have been able to see it before, actually. Maybe if it had been light outside. Just some things are really hard to notice in the dark.

The house had the same imposed upon attitude of the gate. As he approached the front door, he felt like a church mouse, tucking a ragged fur coat around itself. The silver car was nowhere to be seen and most of the house was in darkness. Strange, because Duo had been to a fancy house more than once and it always seemed the rich liked to show how little they cared for their electric bills, they left lights on in almost every room sometimes.

Still one window, low and to his right, had a small lamp on in the window. It was the same, rosy gold glow of the inside of the car and in its reach, he could make out a high backed chair of blood red and a while sleeved arm ending in a hand which clasped a small book. The rest of the person was lost to sight, but it was fairly obvious they were waiting up.

"Don't tell me I beat you, Mister Hero," Duo chuckled to himself as he mounted the stops and stared at the incensed door face. A heavy brass knocker waited him and he hesitated. It just seemed at that moment as if he was on the brink of something very surreal. He reached for it and hummed 'I need a Hero' to himself as he did so.

"Are you sure?" a whisper broke in from behind him.

With a yelp Duo spun around, clutching his hands to his chest and staring into the dark shadows of the front porch. A long legged figure leaned on a railing and moon touched up long silver hair. Duo could sense the oozing sexuality dripping off of it. Where his john made him feel disgusting, dirty, and afraid, this man was almost coming home.

"Sure of what?" Duo shot back, arching a brow and tilting his hips and smirked.

"If you want to enter. All you do it knock, you see. One knock and he'll open the door to you. In fact, you needn't even knock. You need only open it up. He's been waiting for you. But do you want to? Do you know what it will mean?"

Duo took another step back toward the first step and the railing. He could see the man's eyes glittering now, beautiful and very tame compared to the wild light in those blue oceanic orbs from before.

"Who are you?"

The silver haired man smirked. "Who do you want me to be, beautiful?"

Duo drew back. "That's my game."

"Mine too," the man laughed pleasantly. "So if you need a name. How about Zechs? I'm just one of his servants." He jerked his head toward the window and shrugged. "Fair enough?"

"You work for Heero?" Duo noticed how Zechs winced minutely at the speaking of Heero's name.

"Not exactly. I'm more of a free agent. But, well, he's got a lot of clout in my business. I don't do what he says then I am back on the streets again." The man's grin widened.

Duo stared at him. "Fuck me," he whispered. "So he's blackmailing you?"

The man shrugged. "I can't say anymore."

"What did you say? About if I know what it'll mean?"

"Ahh," Zechs smiled softly and pushed away from the railing, mounting the stairs and stopping just a few feet from Duo. His scent of expensive cologne and whiskey on his breath tangled with Duo's nose. Duo hadn't realized until that smell that he'd been missing something. The forest, the house, the car, Heero, nowhere had he smelled anything offensive. It had all been almost beautiful, fragrant, sickeningly sweet.

"You gonna tell me?" Duo growled in impatience.

"Well," Zechs gave a casual toss of his head, grinning. "You see, it's different for everybody. But it's the same. Nothing will ever be the same. You'll never be able to take the same road. He'll want to set you up in a whole new place, a new house, a new hair do. He'll ask you to change for him and he'll want you to love him more than anyone else in the world." Zechs laughed at Duo's look of horror. "Oh yes. Master and servant, that'll be you. And once you enter in, you can't get away. Not without a real struggle."

Duo shook his head. "That's sick."

Zechs reached out, tracing fingers, warm and soft against Duo's cheek. "He'll treat you like a child. He'll make you do things, go places you don't want to go. He'll make everything that you eat sour in your mouth and he'll turn you into a robot, like all the rest of them. A mindless drone. You'll do hellish things for him."

Then the silver haired creature sighed heavily. "Look, I'm just trying to tell you for your own good. I think you should know. And I think you should hide. He knows who you are now. He'll search for you. You aren't safe any longer. I can hide you if you want. I can keep you safe from him."

Duo stared at the man in front of him, feeling drowsy from the heat off of the man's fingers. "I'm… not sure. Heero… he…" This was too strange. Was life like this? Was this even real? It was starting to feel more like a dream than anything now. "I… I just want to go home," he whispered, leaning into the touch on his skin.

"Of course," Zechs whispered and with a triumphant smile slipped his arm around Duo's waist. "Come with me."

Duo took a step, led and helped, then paused.

"But … the money?"

"Shh, don't worry. I'll give you everything you could ever want, my beauty," came the sibilant whisper and Duo smiled in relief.

Duo leaned his head on a broad shoulder in relief. He'd be kept safe. This man would keep him safe. Keep him safe from Heero.

They crossed the second stair and Duo watched his foot step into a small rectangle of light coming from that window at the side, the color flared against his boot, flashing back up into his eyes. With a sudden start, he glanced quickly to the window and found himself frozen by an electric blue gaze, flared with anger.

Duo shrank back from the look Heero was giving him, feeling less like the church mouse and more like a worm, stinky, disgusting, covered in slime. And he wanted nothing more than for Heero to not hate him. It was too frightening to be hated by those eyes. They held everything Duo was in them. He felt held in them even as he wanted nothing more than to cower. And he couldn't remain. With a cry he broke away from Zechs and ran down the drive, into the forest.

He couldn't hear Zechs behind him. He ran instead for the gate he knew would be at the bottom of the hill. A wind broke through the trees and suddenly the moonlight was gone. The drive washed in inky blackness and a scream of terror broke from him. A shadow cast over him, across the way before him, he stumbled, breaking out into a sob as his knee hit the asphalt, his palms stung when he scrambled back to his feet and kept on.

Above him, the wind roared and Duo looked up, trying to see the clouds. Yet to the edges the stars remained. Instead, over him shadows blocked out the lights, looming shadows with arms or wings or… or tentacles or…

Another scream and Duo fell to the ground, covering his head, scrambling for the edge of the road, for a tree, burying his head into the roots. Trembling he listened to the roaring overhead, like a storm and unlike any storm he'd ever heard. He dug fingers into the dirt around the base of the tree, crying out for help until the thought that there was no help here became clear at which time he merely dug and sobbed like a broken child.

Fingers ghosted over his bare back, cutting his skin and the storm came closer, he jerked away from the touches, like whips or flapping coat tails, but he could only get further into the tree roots. "No! no! no no nonononononooo!" his chant became a mantra and he closed his eyes tightly, waiting for darkness of a different kind to come over him.

_No. no. no. no. no. no. God help me, no._  
'Hush.'  
_No. not now. Not ever._  
'Sleep, Duo. Just sleep.'  
_No. Can't sleep. They'll get me._  
'No, Duo. No one will get you. Just sleep.'  
_I am asleep. Aren't I?_  
'Well now, maybe you are. Would you like to wake up?'  
_Yes. Please?_  
'Okay, my dearest one. Wake.'

Duo struggled up from the tangle of sheets, his body covered in sweat. Eyes wide and his fingers clutching his chest, he stared at the afternoon sun slanting across his bed and the one leg that had escaped from the sheets. He was nude, he was home, he was…

"A dream?" he rubbed his face, shuddering away from it. It had seemed so real. Everything had seemed so real. Turning, he looked around him, taking in his room, the sound of snoring came through his open doorway. Suzie was still asleep.

Standing, Duo reached for his pants folded neatly across the back of a chair. He never folded his pants. What was this? Was he that out of it last night? Fear struck him. Maybe it hadn't been a dream? Someone must have slipped him some acid or something. But wouldn't he still be tripping? Shit, it had taken a long time and he hadn't gotten any drinks from anyone. He hadn't put anything into his body.

With a groan, he fished into his pockets, pulling out the money he'd made last night with all of the hand jobs. Thumbing through, he counted. "Five, ten, twenty, twenty five, thirty, forty, forty one, two, three, four, jerk stiffed me, forty nine…" and stopped.

"One, two… three…." he stopped at three hundred, letting the money slip out of his hands. He already knew how much would be there.

Twelve hundred.

* * *

A/N: ((_Well now! Thank you for those reading. And for those thinking about the other stories, I promise I'll get on them in January. I'm not home and this story hasn't any real plot or ending in sight, so I didn't feel badly getting it going. The others will take precedence… BOTS has half of the next chapter done, I only need to get home to finish it up! Yay! _

_Anon: I certainly hope it becomes interesting. This idea has been knocking around in my head for years now. I hope it proves not to be the general run-of-the-mill story. _

_Rebreiwien: Oh dear! I hope I don't disappoint you! It's not a retelling of Pretty Woman. Or maybe it is, on some level. Anh… you'll have to be the judge of that._))


	3. Thinking Thoroughly

_Nobody's fault but mine  
Nobody's fault but mine  
I'll raise my soul to the light  
Nobody's fault but mine  
Take it on, take it on_

_I got a monkey on my back  
I gotta monkey on my back, back, back  
I'll raise my soul to the light  
Nobody's fault but mine - yeah_

_ Nobody's Fault but Mine (trad. gospel)

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_

Morning split the night into shards then dusted them away through chinks in the floorboards.

Duo raised his head off of his pillow. His hair rustled over his back in a mass of knots, mirroring the state of his sheets and the one blanket that he rarely used in the warmer climes of southern United States. His bedding endeavored to keep him in one place, tangling with his feet and his ankles as well as his thighs to hold him down.

Feeling too groggy to fight the resistance of the cotton, Duo merely raised on his elbows and stared blearily at the headboard of his bed. His head felt muzzy and unfocused. He couldn't remember exactly when he'd fallen asleep the night before, but it was well into morning by then.

Twelve fucking hundred dollars had managed to extend his living a few more months. He could have called it a windfall only to think very long on it at all made his gut clench. So he'd wasted it almost. Suze was pissed at him, called him a whore (which, he thought, was rather a ridiculous insult, considering the profession both of them were engaged in). She called him worse later on when he revealed half of the twelve thou had gone into buying coke and some clean pot. The pot was stowed and he'd be able to use it later. Clean shit was worth its weight in gold, really. What with the dealers cutting it with meth. Duo considered himself thin enough. He had no desire to lose more. And if he had, the sight of those girls walking the streets, heels spattering on the concrete unevenly, skin marked here and there where their bodies attempted to thrust the poisons out, burning pores to nothing, cheeks gaunt and circles under their eyes, that sight would have moved him right on past the idea of meth as a means for weight loss. Sticking a finger down one's throat was probably better, if he hadn't had any choice.

Three months rent in advance, paying Suze's debt to her pimp, and a really classy night in a hotel where he didn't have to do any work all night and the doorman was forced to smile and say "Have a nice night, Mr. Maxwell," instead of, "Shove off, mate," had taken care of the last of it.

"You could have at least bought some shit to make your place look nicer. For fuck's sake, Duo!" Suzie groused, her naked lips pursed and not pouting in the least bit. Lounging on his couch after it was all over, her too normal body not pushed up or tucked in or played with by a makeup duster, she could have been a normal grunge twenty something, a cigarette tucked behind her ear and maybe a too stupid to publish novel on an ancient laptop kept out of sight in a bedroom somewhere.

Duo just shrugged, not caring much about her opinion on his apartment or the way he looked. She'd never minded before. Get a few thousand and all of a sudden he's supposed to be different?

The beginning of the rift was slow, carefully planted without either of them aware of it being there. Something in his walking away from a deal with that much money bothered Suzie on so many points, least of which being the fact she'd never managed to pull in that kind of profit before. They had been a sort of partnership until then. But with the following weeks, an uncertainty festered and they slowly began to speak less, walk together less, work with one another less.

The lack of a friend led Duo into areas he might have disregarded before. Now, an almost flat out defiance of death strung along behind him, catching at his heels and hounding him into corners best left undocumented. The cocaine took the edge off of what he did every day and the pot was a nice touch at the end. But he was sleeping far less and the mornings came through the grimed windows with greater insistency because the hours of waking were later and later with each passing week.

Duo couldn't think of a single reason to get up that morning. He let his head fall back into the pillow and groaned softly into it, ignoring the shaft of sunlight tapping his bare shoulder and smoothing down across his nude back. At least he hadn't brought a john back to the room like the night before. That was some small comfort. Waking with another in a room that, until then, had been a haven, was a rude and uncommonly disquieting experience. He had no desire to repeat it.

As with the oddest of times, when he was least expecting it and least desiring it, his mind sought out and produced the picture of that man from the car. Heero. Our hero, his inner voice sneered. He delighted and despaired hating the man with an active imagination both dealing out all manner of death as well as delving deep into some safe sense of chaos the man emanated. The world turned upside down when that Face came to mind. Duo shoved himself out of bed, ass hitting the floor with a loud and painful smack, and the image fleeing before his enforced waking.

There was something wilde and terrifying. While others might say his life was not one to be desired, there were rules and boundaries to everything. Here, in this world he lived within, he could say there were responses one would get. Here, the doorman at the hotel would tell him to shove off. Here, the cocaine would still get him high. Here, simple humanity wrote its laws and he obeyed accordingly. He knew Who he was and What he was.

Heero's world had a glimmer of the impossible. There, had he walked through that door, things would have changed. His surroundings would have been put to the test of those eyes which could do nothing but see the right of things. The tenants upon which he had forged his existence would be sifted, changed by the hand of some great alchemist. And nothing was more fearful to iron than to suddenly find itself gold. Duo, despite his desire to "make something of himself" felt no great wish to become what he could not understand and had never experienced.

The day slid past, oily and unpalatable. Duo hid from it in his room and under the closed shades and dimly lit lamps of his kitchen, stooped over a stove and a mound of uncleaned science experiments using various food stuffs. But Duo wasn't keeping from the sun, vampiric and huddling away. Instead, the results of that Face in his mind were his purpose. He had hopes of refraining from reaping the harvest of his wayward and unkind thoughts this day.

Finally, around ten, Duo peeled himself out of the darkness to meld into a greater darkness outside. The sky overhead had a spilled ink over velvet quality and the stars were just beginning to flare brighter than false. The golden man walked in jeans ripped at the right places and a tight tee shirt upon which was emblazoned the words, "Fuck Me? I try." He paced, actually, cat like, through darkness and with the hesitant certainty that these streets could be no home to him that night. His hips rolled from one edge of his pelvis to the other with each step and with his shoulders tilted back, he proudly displayed himself, bravado draped over him like a veil.

Still, it wasn't enough. He leaned against a store window, the harsh neon lighting from the display case behind him showing him off vividly but not in the least to his advantage, and stared at the silver glare of street off of the coming man's head.

"I should think that the corner is a bit too common for something as disturbing and erotic as you," the silver man purred.

Duo felt the same abhorrence and delight at seeing someone who somehow both didn't fit, and fit so well he might have created the very filth he slipped through. He was with the master of slime and slink and contented ambivalence. He wondered how he'd gone so long not seeing Zechs. The man was everywhere, leering at a fight down at the corner, chuckling all smooth and jazzed over sex in an alleyway, guiding the latest new face toward the one pimp most likely to succeed at pulling the girl or boy on in.

That is, when he wasn't circling Duo.

Zechs would not touch him, but instead, he paced around Duo, his eyes promising what had been. It haunted Duo, thinking that somehow the life he was leading was a past life already, even with him in it.

Duo couldn't be bothered. It was starting to bother him that he'd probably bump into some guy who would be stupid enough to be married or with a certain job that couldn't be jeopardized by being found out with a male prostitute and therefore more easily hit up for money than most. But until that last moment deal, Zechs would keep to the edges of the seedy light patch Duo had set himself inside of, and the man would turn away customers like the wrong polarization of a magnetic tip.

Zechs' eyes narrowed. He hunched down on the pavement, his fingers draping through his knees and touching the sidewalk. "You'll let me in. Because you'll hate being bound," he promised sweetly and his smile was smooth and uncaring, a safe haven for men like Duo who needed to not be cared about, needed the lack of responsibility, the simplicity of a emotionless and played out fuck together with nothing offered afterwards except for perhaps a beer if one could be had.

And Duo, despite his sense that he was still in someone else's life now, knew that what Zechs swore, would come true.

TBC…

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(_A/N: _

_Zmaj: Sorry for the lag of time in updating. This story, as I'm suddenly becoming aware, is dependent entirely (almost so) on musemanship and there has been an odd muse about it for some time and a great deal of fear as to what exactly is going on for the poor writer. Hee hee. But here's another chapter finally! _

_Bane's Desire: Ack! I personally am very much terrified of Zechs, and yes, I think he's an nassssty scary man. But hopefully Duo'll figure it out soon. As for now, there's a dance to do so that we can figure out if there are any "Good Guys" in this story at all! Yay! Thank you so much for reviewing! _)


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